'First in flight' still up in the air

Smithsonian feeling the heat

This is the iconic 1903 Wright Flyer as it appears today in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Critics say that the agreement that the museum has with the Wright family has effectively prevented the world-renowned museum from examining the exploits of other aviation pioneers such as BridgeportâÄôs Gustave Whitehead, who may have flown more than two years earlier in Fairfield. less

This is the iconic 1903 Wright Flyer as it appears today in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Critics say that the agreement that the museum has with the Wright family has effectively ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

Photo: Contributed Photo

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This is the iconic 1903 Wright Flyer as it appears today in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Critics say that the agreement that the museum has with the Wright family has effectively prevented the world-renowned museum from examining the exploits of other aviation pioneers such as BridgeportâÄôs Gustave Whitehead, who may have flown more than two years earlier in Fairfield. less

This is the iconic 1903 Wright Flyer as it appears today in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Critics say that the agreement that the museum has with the Wright family has effectively ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

'First in flight' still up in the air

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BRIDGEPORT -- The former head of the federal General Accounting Office said he would like to see the GAO take a look at the so-called "agreement" between the Wright family and the Smithsonian, seen by many as a linchpin in the ongoing "first in flight" debate.

"Apparently, the Smithsonian may have entered into what appears to be an inappropriate and open-ended advocacy contract between the museum and the Wright family in order to display an aircraft," said David Walker, who was the federal comptroller general and the head of the GAO between 1998 and 2008.

First reported in the 1978 book "History by Contract" by retired U.S. Air Force Reserve Major William J. O'Dwyer and Stella Randolph, the agreement mandates that the Smithsonian Institution define the Wright Flyer as the world's first heavier-than-air aircraft in order to keep it on display. The book argues that Bridgeport's Gustave Whitehead beat the Wrights into the sky by 2½ years.

"My view is that the Smithsonian shouldn't be in the advocacy business -- they should be in the truth business," he told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers in a telephone conversation.

"Yes, displaying certain objects is important and if that is unquestionably the first aircraft to fly, well then, fine," Walker said. "But if there's a dispute about that, then the Smithsonian has an obvious conflict of interest."

Walker said because of this agreement, "there's a need for an independent party to take a look at this."

The GAO is the agency that is best-equipped to do that, he said.

"Independent, professional and fact-based," he said.

But for this to happen, the head of a "relevant" congressional committee would have to make the request. This is usually required before the GAO embarks on an investigation.

"What makes the GAO independent is that the members of Congress can't ask the GAO when to make the investigation, how to make the investigation, nor what the answer should be," Walker said.

To that end, Walker said, Connecticut's congressional delegation should "try to make a pitch" to their colleagues in Congress.

Opinions "can and will differ over who gets the `first in flight' honor," Walker said. "But what bothers me is that they have this contractual arrangement, and they defend the Wright Brothers when there's a clear conflict."

Meanwhile, the Smithsonian maintains that the contract doesn't prevent the museum from investigating other first-in-flight claims. But it does give the Wright family the right to take back the aircraft if does list another early aviator as being the first to fly.

"If there were incontrovertible evidence that someone else (flew first) and the Smithsonian accepted that evidence, then what the agreement requires is that we be willing, should the Wright family ask for it, to give them back the Flyer," said Claire Brown, a museum spokeswoman.

The Wright Flyer has been on display at the Smithsonian since 1948. It was installed in the Arts & Industries Building until 1976, when the National Air & Space Museum opened on the opposite side of the National Mall.

Before the Flyer was put on display, a craft built by Samuel Pierpont Langley called the Aerodrome was listed as "the first man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight."

It was this claim by the Langley faction that led to the "contract" in the first place, the Smithsonian maintains.

Prior to 1948, the Wright Flyer was in England. In 1928, Orville Wright loaned the Flyer to the London Science Museum, where it stayed for 20 years. It was stored in an underground vault during World War II (not in a subway tube, as some have reported).

Since 2003, the Flyer has been the centerpiece of the museum's exhibit: The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age. This is the first time the craft has been mounted at eye level; it had been traditionally displayed "in flight."

It is arguably the most studied, carefully restored and documented historical airship in the world today; scores of technical drawings depicting all of its various sub-assemblies are available on the Smithsonian's website, for example, and scholars are permitted direct access to the craft.

Crouch was not able to be interviewed for this story; on his website he writes: "Critics have charged that because of the risk of losing a national treasure, no Smithsonian staff member would entertain the possibility that someone flew before the Wrights. If I were ever convinced that the evidence supported a pre-Wright claimant, I would say so. I can assure you, however, that the evidence would have to be a whole lot more persuasive than anything offered so far by those who believe Gustave Whitehead was the first to fly."

In a speech delivered in Bridgeport's Discovery Museum on Aug. 18, aviation historian John Brown, an advocate of Whitehead flying first, demanded that Crouch to resign, a call he said was prompted by a letter that Crouch wrote to another aviation historian in which, as Brown maintains, the Smithsonian curator admitted that an oft-published photo of the Wright Flyer off the ground at Kitty Hawk does not illustrate the craft in actual powered, controlled flight.

"It was his description of the famous Kitty Hawk photo. That's inexcusable, especially when using it in an argument as 'proof,' " Brown, who lives in Munich, Germany, told the Post.

Crouch has since vehemently disagreed with that assessment. Brown, in his Aug, 18 speech, also cited, among other things, Crouch's friendship with members of the Wright family and his roots in Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wrights.

Earlier this spring, citing evidence provided by Brown, Jane's All the World's Aircraft -- the bible of flying machines -- listed Whitehead, not the Wrights, as the first to fly.

Brown and Crouch have sparred with one another in a flurry of emails filled with claims and counter-claims over the past few months.

Whitehead's supporters say that on Aug. 14, 1901 -- more than two years before the Wright brothers' flight on Kitty Hawk, N.C., on Dec. 17, 1903 -- the German immigrant achieved sustained, controlled flight in Fairfield.

Walker lives in Bridgeport and heads a nonprofit organization, the Comeback America Initiative.

"I just want the facts and the truth for the American people -- that's what the Smithsonian should be all about," Walker said.